Trump Reportedly Drafting Emergency Declaration for Border Wall

Because of course he is. Nancy Cook at Politico reports:

The White House is finalizing details of a potential national emergency declaration to secure [Donald] Trump's border wall, even as lawmakers are trying to broker an immigration deal that could avert another shutdown in just over two weeks.

Trump met with his budget chief, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Jared Kushner, and other top officials, including White House lawyers, on Tuesday to walk through the logistics of such a move. And White House aides have been quietly meeting with outside conservative political groups to build support for the president to take such an action. Those talking points, which emphasize Trump's legal authority, have begun to show up in such conservative media outlets as Breitbart News.

The behind-the-scenes maneuvers indicate that the administration wants to be poised to quickly declare a national emergency, should Trump choose to do so, by the time Congress hits its Feb. 15 deadline to strike a deal before government funding again runs out. And it signals that White House officials may not have much faith in congressional Republicans to secure the funding in the coming weeks that Trump seeks to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump himself has said the odds of a congressional deal are "less than 50-50."

One senior White House official told Politico the goal is to have such a declaration 100 percent ready and coordinated should Trump decide to move on it rather than scrambling ex post facto to draw up and justify one.

Anyone who's been paying the slightest bit of attention to how Trump works already assumed that Trump and his White House gremlins were getting their emergency declaration ready in the likely event that Congress didn't come up with a deal that funded his monument to nativist white supremacy. But here is confirmation of what we were all anticipating.

What absolute wrecks of humanity these men are, planning to shut down the government again over this malicious horseshit. I would say "despite the vast harm the last shutdown caused," but it's not despite. Malice is the agenda.

And once again I will register my fury that Jared Kushner is still free to shape horrendous national policy, even though it is public knowledge that he broke federal law multiple times by lying on his required financial disclosure forms. (Never mind what federal investigators have turned up on him.) That he still hasn't been removed from his position is incomprehensible to me.

Back in May of last year, when Kushner was granted his permanent security clearance, I wrote: "Something I and others, including and especially my friend Sarah Kendzior, have noted is that Jared Kushner is a litmus test both for how effectively the nation's checks and balances are keeping kleptocracy at bay and also for the urgency and efficacy of Mueller's investigation. As long as Kushner, who has demonstrably broken federal law by lying on disclosure forms, retains a job in the White House, we should all be very concerned about the potential for meaningful accountability, from any source."

Here we are, eight months later, and Kushner is still empowered to make decisions that will affect the lives of millions of people.

Trump should be removed from office, but that will be very difficult. Removing his son-in-law would not be difficult at all. So we really need to wonder why it is that it hasn't happened.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 741

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Polar Vortex: It's Cooooooooold! and Christie Unintentionally Reveals Trump's Strategy and The Time Is Now: Get Trump Outta There. And some good resistance news, ICYMI late yesterday: Stacey Abrams Will Deliver the Democratic Rebuttal to the State of the Union Address.

Meanwhile, on Twitter, this seemed to resonate (!!!):

"Billionaire" isn't a qualification. It's the description of a person who is hoarding more resources than they could use in 100 lifetimes while other people are starving. It's the name for a human dragon sleeping on its pile of rubies and gold.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 29, 2019

Here are some more things in the news today...

John Wagner and Shane Harris at the Washington Post: Trump Blasts U.S. Intelligence Officials, Disputes Assessments on Iran and Other Global Threats. "[Donald] Trump lashed out at U.S. intelligence officials Wednesday, calling them 'extremely passive and naive' about the 'dangers of Iran' and pushing back on their assessments of the Islamic State and North Korea during a congressional hearing. ...Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, also weighed in. 'The President has a dangerous habit of undermining the intelligence community to fit his alternate reality,' Warner said in a tweet. 'People risk their lives for the intelligence he just tosses aside on Twitter.'"

When Russia is involved it’s always shady!
Venezuelan lawmaker says that the empty Russian plane (500 person capacity) that arrived yesterday was there to pick up 20 tons of gold from the central bank
Destination unknown https://t.co/eHYPGX53S9

— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) January 30, 2019

I still don't understand what Trump (and Pence) are doing in Venezuela, although I am damn certain that their interest does not end at regime change. I do think they are interested in further destabilizing the region, to what ends I'm not sure, and I suspect there's a possibility of waging a false war with Russia in Venezuela, with the purpose of pillaging oil and other regional resources (including state treasure; see above) and the tangential benefit of creating the illusion that Russia and the U.S. are still adversaries and that the U.S. president isn't a wholly-owned subsidiary of Vladimir Putin. In any case, I'm very freaked out and worried for the people of Venezuela.

Emma Loop at BuzzFeed: A House Democrat Is Targeting Steven Mnuchin's Business Dealings in the Russian Sanctions Fight. "A House Democrat is demanding answers about an alleged business deal that Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin had with an associate of a Russian oligarch whose companies recently received US sanctions relief. California Rep. Jackie Speier, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, sent a letter to Mnuchin last week seeking answers about a deal he reportedly made in 2017 with an associate of Oleg Deripaska's, the billionaire aluminum magnate whose companies Treasury surprisingly announced it would be taking off the formal sanctions list in December."

Igor Derysh at Salon: With Sanctions Lifted, Trump Transition Member Gets Board Position on Russian Oligarch's Company. "On Sunday, the Treasury Department lifted the sanctions on three companies owned by Deripaska 10 months after it imposed them, citing Russia’s 'malign activity around the globe.' Deripaska, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was also personally sanctioned because the government accused him of threats to rivals, bribing government officials and links to organized crime. As part of the deal to have the sanctions lifted, Deripaska agreed to dilute his control of EN+, the parent company of the Russian aluminum giant Rusal. ...On Monday, EN+ announced seven new board directors, including Christopher Burnham, who served on Trump's State Department transition team and previously worked as an executive at Deutsche Bank." Deutsche Bank. Of course.

As an Intelligence warrior my mission was to identify imminent threats to our great nation. A megalomaniacal, delusional #RussianAsset who thinks he knows better than all of us is the greatest threat this nation has ever faced. Our Constitution gives us tools to #DisArmTheThreat https://t.co/iKWwB0dspZ

— Malcolm Nance (@MalcolmNance) January 30, 2019

Danny Hakim at the New York Times: N.R.A. Seeks Distance From Russia as Investigations Heat Up. "When a delegation of high-profile donors, boosters, and board members from the National Rifle Association traveled to Russia in 2015, they visited a gun factory in Moscow, took in a ballet, and met with members of Vladimir Putin's inner circle. But now the N.R.A. is seeking to distance itself from the trip, after revelations that a Russian woman who helped arrange it, Maria Butina, was conspiring to infiltrate the organization. The trip has been a subject of scrutiny in at least four inquiries into the N.R.A.'s ties to Russia; questions about the N.R.A. have also surfaced in the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III. Newly empowered congressional Democrats are now stepping up efforts to uncover how much money the N.R.A. received from Russia, and whether the group served as a conduit for Russian funds into the 2016 Trump campaign."

Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: Hacked Emails List Right-Wing Fundraiser Partying with Russian Fascists and Oligarchs. "Last month, a new leak site called Distributed Denial of Secrets went live, compiling a cache of hacked emails and documents of Russian officials, confidants of sanctioned Russian oligarchs, and those steering Russian interference efforts. Among the revelations: A higher-up at the Bradley Foundation, one of the main financiers of right-wing groups in the U.S. — including the Daily Caller News Foundation and anti-immigrant organizations — apparently attended a notorious 'pro-family' conference in Russia in 2014, held shortly after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine."

Betsy Woodruff and Erin Banco at the Daily Beast: Mueller Witness' Team Gamed Out Russian Meddling...in 2015. "Days after Donald Trump rode down an escalator at Trump Tower and announced he'd run for president, a little-known consulting firm with links to Israeli intelligence started gaming out how a foreign government could meddle in the U.S. political process. Internal communications, which The Daily Beast reviewed, show that the firm conducted an analysis of how illicit efforts might shape American politics. Months later, the Trump campaign reviewed a pitch from a company owned by that firm's founder — a pitch to carry out similar efforts."

Christopher Bing and Joel Schectman at Reuters: Special Report: Inside the UAE's Secret Hacking Team of U.S. Mercenaries.

Stroud had been recruited by a Maryland cyber security contractor to help the Emiratis launch hacking operations, and for three years, she thrived in the job. But in 2016, the Emiratis moved Project Raven to a UAE cyber security firm named DarkMatter. Before long, Stroud and other Americans involved in the effort say they saw the mission cross a red line: targeting fellow Americans for surveillance.

"I am working for a foreign intelligence agency who is targeting U.S. persons," she told Reuters. "I am officially the bad kind of spy."

The story of Project Raven reveals how former U.S. government hackers have employed state-of-the-art cyber-espionage tools on behalf of a foreign intelligence service that spies on human rights activists, journalists, and political rivals.

Interviews with nine former Raven operatives, along with a review of thousands of pages of project documents and emails, show that surveillance techniques taught by the NSA were central to the UAE's efforts to monitor opponents.

There is much more at the link.

* * *

Greg Sargent at the Washington Post: Howard Schultz Is Anything But a Realist. "The idea that a billionaire with no political experience is just what we need is particularly galling amid our current disastrous experiment. And Schultz would run as a 'centrist independent,' which appears to mean 'economically conservative and socially liberal,' but there's not a great constituency for that. ...At the core of this sort of centrism is the idea that there's a hallowed middle ground that — simply by virtue of being equidistant between arbitrarily designated and presumptively equivalent 'extremes' — is inherently sensible, virtuous, and above all, non-ideological. This idea is certainly seductive to far too many people. But it doesn't give rise to anything resembling realism. In a way, it's a rigid ideology all its own."

Pilar Melendez at the Daily Beast: Howard Schultz Shocked a Box of Cheerios Costs Four Dollars. "Former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, amid a media tour rife with awkward moments, got stumped by Morning Joe on Wednesday when asked: 'How much does an 18-ounce box of Cheerios cost?' 'An 18 ounce box of Cheerios? I don't eat Cheerios,' the billionaire responded to host Mika Brzezinski. When she revealed the price was four dollars, Schultz was shocked. 'That's a lot,' he said."

There are a whole lot of reasons that the cultural enamourment with billionaires and the attendant belief that they are inherently qualified to be political leaders are garbage. Among them is this: Anyone who is a billionaire is de facto completely out of touch with the lives of the majority of the population. They have no comprehension about what life is really like. One cannot effectively and decently lead people whose lives they fundamentally don't understand.

And, truly, no president of a wildly and wonderfully diverse nation can know and understand the lives, needs, interests, struggles, and successes of everyone in the country. But living in a separate, elite economic stratosphere is insulating, even for the empathic and curious.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 30, 2019

[Content Note: Class warfare] Ally Boguhn at Rewire.News: Diapers, Tampons, Nursing Bras: The Trump Shutdown's Unseen Costs for Working Families. "Corinne Cannon, founder and executive director of the Greater D.C. Diaper Bank, told Rewire.News Friday that the organization saw 'a pretty drastic increase in requests for help for individuals' during the government shutdown. The diaper bank, operating in D.C., Maryland, and Virginia for more than eight years, normally provides 'diapers, period products, formula, breastfeeding supplies, adult incontinence supplies, and other hygiene products' to social service organizations that then distribute them to those in need. But during the government shutdown, there was 'a massive increase in need,' Cannon said. 'We had an increase in requests for individuals, an increase in requests from organizations — we saw a lot of folks who we've never talked to about diaper needs before coming [to us].'"

[CN: Nativism] John Wagner and Erica Werner at the Washington Post: Trump Digs In on Border Wall Funds as Congressional Negotiators Prepare to Convene. "Trump warned Wednesday that congressional negotiators would be 'wasting their time' if they do not discuss his demand for a U.S.-Mexico border wall, which led to a 35-day partial government shutdown that ended last week with a temporary truce. The president's message, delivered in a morning tweet, came hours before a bipartisan, bicameral committee was set to meet for the first time to broker a compromise over border security funding and avert another shutdown, with Democrats continuing to resist Trump's demand. 'If the committee of Republicans and Democrats now meeting on Border Security is not discussing or contemplating a Wall or Physical Barrier, they are Wasting their time!' Trump wrote on Twitter."

Fucking hell.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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We Resist: Day 740

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: This F#@king Guy and Bill Barr Discussed Mueller Probe with Mike Pence and Newsflash: Warmongers Want Wars. And ICYMI late yesterday: An Observation About Bernie.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Danielle Paquette at the Washington Post: The Lowest-Paid Shutdown Workers Aren't Getting Back Pay. "Unlike the 800,000 career public servants who are slated to receive full back pay over the next week or so, the contractors who clean, guard, cook, and shoulder other jobs at federal workplaces aren't legally guaranteed a single penny. They're also among the lowest-paid laborers in the government economy, generally earning between $450 and $650 weekly, union leaders say. And even as they began returning to work Monday, they were bracing for more pain. [Donald] Trump's new deadline for Congress to earmark funding for his proposed border wall is Feb. 15. Agencies could close again if no deal is reached."

If Donald Trump is really the magnanimous "blue collar billionaire" he purports to be, then he should use money from his own goddamned pockets to give back pay to the working people who are getting stiffed because of his shutdown. Of course he will never do that, because he didn't even pay people who did work for him when he was a private citizen and because MALICE IS THE AGENDA.

Suzy Khimm at NBC News: The Shutdown Is Over, But the Pain for Low-Income Families Lingers. "[Candice Cluff] was among the thousands of low-income Americans across the country who were frozen out of the Section 8 voucher program during the shutdown, prohibited from accessing public subsidies to private landlords who rent to about 2.2 million families. When vouchers became available through turnover, many local housing authorities decided to stop re-issuing the vouchers to new participants because they couldn't guarantee they'd be able to pay landlords after February, according to Steve Berg, vice president for programs and policy at the National Alliance to End Homelessness, an advocacy group."

Liam Stack at the New York Times: Joshua Trees Destroyed in National Park During Shutdown May Take Centuries to Regrow. "The partial government shutdown ended last week after 35 days, but conservationists have warned that its impact may be felt for hundreds of years in at least one part of the country: Joshua Tree National Park. The Southern California park, which is larger than Rhode Island and famed for its dramatic rock formations and the spiky-leafed Joshua trees from which it takes it name, had only a skeleton crew of workers during the shutdown. With most of its park rangers furloughed, vandals and inconsiderate guests ran amok. Gates and posts were toppled, new roads carved through the desert by unauthorized off-road drivers, and a small number of the park's thousands of Joshua trees were outright destroyed, conservationists said."

Burgess Everett, John Bresnahan, and Sarah Ferris at Politico: Republicans May Block Trump from Another Shutdown. "Though House Republicans aren't ruling out supporting the president should he choose another confrontation over his border wall, the Republican Senate majority — which actually has governing power — has another view. 'I did not love the shutdown. I wouldn't think anybody would have another shutdown,' said Sen. Roy Blunt (R-Mo.), one of the key negotiators trying to strike a deal on border security. ...But while White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Trump 'doesn't want to go through another shutdown,' she declined to rule it out if Congress doesn't come up with a border security plan to Trump's liking. Neither did House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), a close Trump confidant."

So, presumably, Senate Republicans will keep rolling over. Or strategize how to throw Trump under the bus so they can finally get their President Pence and go back to sliding into authoritarian rule behind someone who people insistently believe will be "better" than Trump just because he is less vulgar.

* * *

Joshua Eaton and Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: Roger Stone Pleads Not Guilty to Lying to Congress About Russia Collusion. "Stone faces one count of obstructing a proceeding, five counts of lying to Congress, and one count of witness tampering. ...After the reading of the charges was waived, [one of Stone's attorneys, Robert Buschel] entered the not guilty plea on Stone's behalf. ...Judge Robinson imposed similar conditions for Stone's release to those put in place Friday in Florida. He can travel only between Florida, D.C., and New York, and he agreed not to contact any other witnesses in this case." Oh, well as long as he promises! I'm sure we can trust him. Roger Stone would never lie.

ROGER STONE's ludicrous conspiracy theory: "They're trying to criminalize free speech... I honestly believe they're going to try to charge POTUS & VP on hokum. That way they can make Pelosi president. She can make Hillary vice president & then step aside. It's a nightmare." pic.twitter.com/I46yDYTTLm

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) January 29, 2019

If only.

Kelly Weill at the Daily Beast: How the Proud Boys Became Roger Stone's Personal Army. "On Tuesday, Stone was arraigned in a Washington, D.C. courthouse on charges he lied about dealings with WikiLeaks and the Trump campaign in 2016. Stone has spent the past two years as the most outlandish character in the Trump-Russia saga, with his colorful quotes and flamboyant wardrobe. At the same time, he's grown tighter with the violent ultra-nationalist group, hiring them as security and participating in the group's videos — even repeating its slogan." For fuck's sake.


* * *

At threats hearing, DNI Dan Coats contradicted @realDonaldTrump by saying that ISIS is not defeated and that North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. And in other news, U.S. intelligence says Russia and China are working together against us. Have a nice day.

— Ken Dilanian (@KenDilanianNBC) January 29, 2019

Also from the threats assessment hearing, via the Daily Beast: Kremlin and Other Enemies Will Target 2020 Election.

America's enemies will "almost certainly" use online influence operations to try to weaken its institutions, undermine its alliances, and cause unrest during the 2020 elections, the Director of National Intelligence has said.

In its 2019 threat assessment, released Tuesday morning, the DNI said that the country's enemies are "probably already are looking to the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests." Specifically focusing on Russia, the report says that the Kremlin's disinformation campaigns online will try to "aggravate social and racial tensions, undermine trust in authorities, and criticize perceived anti-Russia politicians."

...In his opening statement on the report to the Senate Intelligence Committee, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats emphasized that China "is the most active strategic competitor responsible for cyber espionage against the US Government, corporations, and allies."

CNN's Jim Sciutto also notes that the assessment contradicts Trump's claim that North Korea will denuclearize, noting that "the IC continues to assess that it is unlikely to give up all of its WMD stockpiles, delivery systems, and production capabilities."

And while foreign adversaries try to subvert our democracy from the outside, the Republican Party will continue to try to subvert our democracy from the inside.

Addy Baird at ThinkProgress: Kentucky Leads the Country in Disenfranchising African American Voters, Report Finds. "One out of every four African American voters is disenfranchised in the state of Kentucky, a higher rate than any other state, as a result of the state's law barring people with felony convictions from voting, according to a new report from the Kentucky League of Women Voters released Tuesday." Emphasis mine.

* * *

Interesting choice by Schultz to kick off his campaign by calling his critics “as un-American as you can get.” pic.twitter.com/z6bd2aPG4n

— Adam Jentleson 🎈 (@AJentleson) January 29, 2019

Howard Schultz has already called these things un-American:

• Ocasio-Cortez's tax on the wealthy
• Kamala Harris' Medicare for All proposal
• Critics of third-party campaigns

— ryan teague beckwith (@ryanbeckwith) January 29, 2019

Seriously. This fucking guy.

With her permission, I'm going to share SKM's earlier comment here on the main page:

Please note also that Schultz has naught but the vaguest objections to GOP (general "division is bad" hand-waving) yet he's johnny-on-the-spot in attacking right-wing anti-Dem straw men (e.g. AOC's mention of a 70% marginal tax, as though that's a universal Dem position, and as though it's not a very old idea).

He is running against the Democratic party but NOT against the GOP, simple as.

Correct.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 739

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: The Collusion Is Right Out in the Open and Dear Howard Schultz: NO. Sincerely, All of Us. and Polar Vortex Hits with a Vengeance.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Ylan Mui at CNBC: The Government Shutdown Cost the Economy $11 Billion, Including a Permanent $3 Billion Loss, Congressional Budget Office Says.

The federal government shutdown cost the economy $11 billion, according to a new analysis from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, reflecting lost output from federal workers, delayed government spending and reduced demand.

The report, which was released Monday, estimated a hit of $3 billion, or 0.1 percent, to economic activity during the fourth quarter of 2018. The impact was projected to be greater during the first quarter of 2019: $8 billion, or 0.2 percent of GDP.

Although most of the damage to the economy will be reversed as federal workers return to their jobs, the CBO estimated $3 billion in economic activity is permanently lost after a quarter of the government was closed for nearly 35 days.

"Among those who experienced the largest and most direct negative effects are federal workers who faced delayed compensation and private-sector entities that lost business," the report said. "Some of those private-sector entities will never recoup that lost income."

Devan Cole and Kevin Bohn at CNN: State of the Union Will Not Take Place Tuesday, Pelosi Aide Says. "Donald Trump's second State of the Union address will not take place on Tuesday, an aide to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told CNN. The aide confirmed that the address, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday, will not happen — answering a key question about the address's fate in the wake of the reopening of the federal government. ...Trump's director of strategic communications Mercedes Schlapp said Monday that the White House has been in discussions with Pelosi's office about rescheduling the address and that 'we should have a response soon.'"

Good for Pelosi for not just letting everything "go back to normal" and proceed as planned. Trump shouldn't get what he wants when he's still threatening to hold the country hostage again. The SOTU continues to be a point of leverage in Pelosi's pocket, and she knows it.

Casey Michel at ThinkProgress: GOP Moves to Block Anyone from Running a 2020 Primary Challenge Against Trump. "Amidst collapsing poll numbers and an unmitigated defeat in his standoff with House Democrats, one contingent still has [Donald] Trump's back: the Republican National Committee (RNC), which is planning to stonewall any efforts from potential GOP challengers for the 2020 nomination. As ABC reported, the RNC passed a resolution on Friday that threw their 'undivided support' behind the president as he gears up for the 2020 race — a resolution that effectively undercut any other Republicans thinking of running."

Thank you to the Republican National Committee, (the RNC), who voted UNANIMOUSLY yesterday to support me in the upcoming 2020 Election. Considering that we have done more than any Administration in the first two years, this should be easy. More great things now in the works!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 26, 2019

Democracy killers. The entire Republican Party isn't even pretending they aren't authoritarians anymore.

[Content Note: Child abuse] Irwin Redlener at the Daily Beast: The Trump Administration Is the Worst for Children in the Country's History. "It was already clear that Donald Trump's policies, actions, and words have put millions of children at risk. But although the longest government shutdown in American history is coming to an end, this nearly 40 day financial crisis added a whole new dimension to the challenges facing children living in poor, working poor, and even many middle-class families. It has become undeniable that after only two years, the Trump administration is already showing itself to be the most anti-child of any presidency in memory."

We could have had a president who had dedicated her life to improving the lives of children. Instead, we are stuck with this piece of shit.

[CN: Nativism; violent misogyny] Katie Mettler at the Washington Post: Trump Again Mentioned Taped-Up Women at the Border; Experts Don't Know What He Is Talking About. "Trump has a new favorite anecdote, one that fixates on tape. Specifically, in public remarks at the White House, at the border and at farming conventions, the president has been talking about tape on the mouths of migrant women. On at least eight occasions over a period of 12 days this month, the president has argued publicly for his proposed wall on the southern border by claiming without evidence that traffickers tie up and silence women with tape before illegally driving them through the desert from Mexico to the United States in the backs of cars and windowless vans."

And at TPM, Kate Riga notes: "Soon after the Washington Post questioned where he got that information, acting Border Patrol Assistant Chief Armando Sianez asked agents if they had any evidence to backup Trump's claims." Gross.

Justin Wise at the Hill: Graham Says Trump Floated Using Military Force in Venezuela. "Trump reportedly broached the idea of using military force in Venezuela in a conversation with Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) earlier this month. Graham recounted the exchange to Axios, telling the news outlet that Trump asked him what he thought about using military force in a nation where the U.S. is pushing for regime change. ...Graham added that Trump is 'really hawkish' when it comes to Venezuela."

Meanwhile...

US, Canadian fighter planes scramble to escort Russian bombers

Russia now using intimidation tactics by coming near the North American coastline https://t.co/1xaPXBsma2

— Olga Lautman (@olgaNYC1211) January 27, 2019

[CN: Homophobia] Speaking of Russia being terrible... Savas Abadsidis at Towleroad: Protestors Wrap Russian Embassy with the Rainbow Flag to Protest the Anti-Gay Purge in Chechnya. "About a hundred people protested the Russian Embassy in London 'to raise awareness of and call for an end to the persecution of the LGBTQ community in the Chechen Republic' according to Gay Times. The protest was intended to coincide with International Holocaust Remembrance Day. The protest had four demands according to Gay Times: 'For Theresa May to publicly condemn Chechnya's atrocities; for governments to shelter refugees from Chechnya; for a United Nations investigation on Russia; and for Russian authorities to bring those responsible to justice.'"

[CN: Right-wing terrorism; Islamophobia]

"Three Kansas militia men sentenced over plot to kill Somali Muslims." Build that wall or whatever. 🤨 https://t.co/ZRZrcjvJaP

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 26, 2019

[CN: Gun violence; misogynist violence; death; toxic masculinity] Madeline Holcombe and Kelly McCleary at CNN: Suspect in Five Louisiana Shooting Deaths Captured in Virginia.

[Dakota Theriot, 21, is] accused of killing his parents, his girlfriend, and her father and brother in two separate shootings Saturday in Louisiana.

Elizabeth and Keith Theriot, both 50, were at their home near Baton Rouge when the suspect killed them, Ascension Parish Sheriff Bobby Webre said.

When authorities arrived at the scene, Keith Theriot was still alive and told them his son shot them, authorities said.

Dakota Theriot's girlfriend, Summer Ernest, and her relatives were found dead in a home 30 miles away. The other victims included her father, Billy Ernest, 43, and her brother Tanner Ernest, 17, according to authorities.

Theriot was dating Summer and had lived with the Ernests for several weeks, Livingston Parish Sheriff Jason Ard said. He was recently asked to leave the residence and not return, according to authorities.

...Authorities believe the shootings stemmed from a "boyfriend [and] girlfriend type of dispute," CNN affiliate WAFB reported.

"This is probably one of the worst domestic violence incidents I've seen in quite a while," Webre said. "For a young man to walk into a bedroom and kill his mother and his father, and then kill friends in Livingston that he had a connection with."

There were no red flags ahead of the two shootings Saturday morning and other than a simple possession of drug paraphernalia charge, Theriot had no other run-ins with the Livingston Parish Sheriff's Office, Ard said.

My condolences to the families, friends, and colleagues of the victims.

A couple of points:

1. I am enraged that Summer Ernest is being identified as her murderer's "girlfriend" here, despite the fact that she and/or her parents kicked him out of their residence recently, and it is very likely that her decision to not be his girlfriend anymore is why he murdered her.

2. It is absolutely incomprehensible to me that police would suggest there were "no red flags" ahead of the shootings, given that the "dispute" between Ernest and Theriot was enough that he was asked to GTFO. Just because police don't know what precipitated that incident doesn't mean that there were no red flags.

3. Again, this is another mass shooting by a young white man who is somehow taken into custody alive, while young Black men and women are killed by police during altercations following suspected crimes like selling loose cigarettes or breaking traffic laws.

Rage. Seethe. Boil.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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Trump to Make Shutdown Announcement

Donald Trump will shortly appear in the Rose Garden to make an announcement about the shutdown. The deal he's hammering out with Congressional leaders will reportedly include funding for a short-term reopening of the government through mid-February, no funding for Trump's border wall, and a provision to get back pay to federal workers.

Who knows what Trump will actually say when he finally walks out to the podium, but it looks like instead of Trump getting his wall, Nancy Pelosi's going to get a cave.

Cough.

Speaking of Pelosi, the Speaker continues to be an absolute badass.

Pelosi, asked how Trump will handle backdown on reopening government without wall money, gestures toward her office decorations: “we could plant these flowers along the border and he’d say, ‘I got my wall.’ “

— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) January 25, 2019

Here's a thread for discussion.

Open Wide...

Shut Up!

We Resist: Day 736

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Earlier today by me: Roger Stone Arrested; Indicted on Seven Counts and FAA Halts Flights into LaGuardia over Air Traffic Control Staffing Concerns.

Here are some more things in the news today...

Joshua Eaton at ThinkProgress: Trump Tells Federal Workers to Borrow Groceries as Second Missed Payday Looms.

Donald Trump suggested Thursday that the 800,000 federal workers who are facing a second missed paycheck at the end of this week should essentially borrow groceries to get through what has become the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

"Local people know who they are, when they go for groceries and everything else," Trump said of federal workers during a meeting on trade at the White House. "And I think… that they will work along. I know banks are working along."

"And that's what happens in times like this," Trump continued. "They know the people, they've been dealing with them for years, and they work along."

Trump's apparent suggestion that local grocery stores will let furloughed federal workers take food on an IOU was offered as an explanation for comments made Thursday by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who questioned why federal workers who aren't getting paid would need to turn to food banks for help. Ross, himself a millionaire, said workers should simply take out emergency loans to cover their living expenses.

These fucking jagoffs have no idea how the world actually works. JFC.

That is not the job of the Senate Majority Leader. https://t.co/fPOYzLlzQ2

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 25, 2019

Amanda Michelle Gomez at ThinkProgress: The Ways the Government Shutdown Is Impacting Workers' Health and Well-Being. "It's hard to fully grasp the toll this partial shutdown is taking on the country. For one, it's of unprecedented length. But its effects are immediate and sometimes dire depending on other life circumstances like income or health. ...'The emotional stress is overwhelming,' said Bony King-Taylor, a psychologist in D.C. Many of her clients are federal workers and so she's hearing firsthand how the shutdown is making daily tasks, like paying for groceries or child care, excruciating."

GOP Senators and Mike Pence definitely want us to *believe* GOP Senators were reading Mike Pence the riot act anyway.https://t.co/kcKuMXNzL6

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 25, 2019

I would be amazed if some of those "irate" senators weren't actually having some important closed-door communications about Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell right about now.

In related (even if it doesn't seem like it) news... Josh Dawsey and Michelle Ye Hee Lee at the Washington Post: Koch Network Tells Donors It Plans to Stay out of 2020 Race, Once Again Declining to Back Trump. "The conservative Koch political network has told donors that it plans to once again stay out of the presidential race and will not work to help reelect [Donald] Trump in 2020, a move that sidelines a major player that has been pivotal in mobilizing voters on the right for more than a decade. ...The network's plan to stay out of the 2020 race was quietly relayed to major donors in recent months, according to people familiar with the conversations."

* * *

Olivia Messer at the Daily Beast: Fox & Friends on Roger Stone Indictment: 'Where's the Russia Collusion?' "'Where is the Russia collusion?' an incredulous Steve Doocy asked on the Fox & Friends couch early Friday morning as news broke that the president's longtime adviser Roger Stone had been indicted. The trio of co-hosts tried their best to put a positive spin on the bombshell document, which laid out how Stone had been directed by the Trump campaign to communicate with WikiLeaks about emails stolen by the Russians."

Relatedly: I've seen a lot of folks issuing totally trenchant reminders that Stone is "innocent until proven guilty," which, sure, but also that's kinda rendered inoperative when the guilty parties are basically like "yeah, we did it, but who even cares."

Laura Strickler, Ken Dilanian, and Peter Alexander at NBC News: Officials Rejected Jared Kushner for Top Secret Security Clearance, But Were Overruled. "Jared Kushner's application for a top-secret clearance was rejected by two career White House security specialists after an FBI background check raised concerns about potential foreign influence on him — but their supervisor overruled the recommendation and approved the clearance, two sources familiar with the matter told NBC News."

I mean, it's great to have confirmation of this, but that was definitely what I already assumed, given that it was publicly known at the time he was issued his permanent security clearance that he'd broken federal law multiple times by lying on his financial disclosure forms.

Priscilla Alvarez and Tammy Kupperman at CNN: White House Preparing Draft National Emergency Order, Has Identified $7 Billion for Wall. "The White House is preparing a draft proclamation for [Donald] Trump to declare a national emergency along the southern border and has identified more than $7 billion in potential funds for his signature border wall should he go that route, according to internal documents reviewed by CNN. Trump has not ruled out using his authority to declare a national emergency and direct the Defense Department to construct a border wall as Congress and the White House fight over a deal to end the government shutdown. But while Trump's advisers remain divided on the issue, the White House has been moving forward with alternative plans that would bypass Congress."

Trump has been and remains our most pressing national emergency.

* * *

Tom Phillips and Julian Borger at the Guardian: Venezuela Crisis: U.S. Pulls Out Staff and Tells Citizens to 'Strongly Consider' Leaving. "The U.S. state department has urged its citizens to 'strongly consider' leaving Venezuela and ordered out non-emergency government staff as the head of the country's armed forces warned of a civil war sparked by a U.S.-backed 'criminal plan' to unseat Nicolás Maduro. In a live address to the nation on Thursday, the defence minister, Vladimir Padrino, accused the Venezuelan opposition led by Juan Guaidó, the United States, and regional allies such as Brazil of launching an attempted coup against Maduro that risked bringing 'chaos and anarchy' to the country." Fucking hell. What an ungodly mess. I have friends in Caracas, trying to get out, and I am so worried for them.

Greg Andrews at the Indianapolis Business Journal: Decimation of Daily Newspapers Sets Stage for Potential Star Sale.

Days after Gannett Co. agreed to buy Central Newspapers Inc., parent of The Indianapolis Star and The Arizona Republic, for $2.6 billion in 2000, then-Gannett CEO Doug McCorkindale toured the Indianapolis newsroom and declared, "It's going to be business as usual, for the most part."

It was the last four words that worried Star staffers — who were all too familiar with Gannett's reputation for cutting staff to boost profits. But no one at Central Newspapers or at Gannett's headquarters in Virginia foresaw the economic forces that have devastated the daily newspaper business over the last two decades — and whittled the size of The Star's newsroom from 280 people at the time of the deal to about 80 today.

The cuts could get substantially worse if Digital First Media prevails in its quest to purchase Gannett. The Denver-based company on Jan. 14 unveiled a $1.36 billion, unsolicited offer for the publisher of more than 100 newspapers in the United States — including USA Today, The Cincinnati Enquirer, and Detroit Free Press — and more than 170 in the United Kingdom.

All newspaper companies have cut costs as they struggle with the decline in what had been their cash cow — print advertising — and simultaneously scratch and claw for digital advertising — a far more competitive realm and one that's far less profitable.

But rather than investing in initiatives that could create a brighter future, Digital First, controlled by the hedge fund Alden Global Capital, has been unabashed in minimizing expenses to maximize profit — seemingly with little concern over how cuts would affect newspapers' ability to fulfill their missions of covering news and serving as a watchdog in their communities.

So, this is very bad news for a whole lot of reasons, but I want to highlight that, if the Indy Star goes away, so does most of the journalistic record on Mike Pence's time as governor of Indiana. Even if the paper is merely digitally rebranded, all the old links get broken. You kill the Indy Star, you kill the public record on Pence.

And finally, speaking of Indiana... Ian Graber-Stiehl at Earther: The Wild Dunes of Indiana Are in a Fight to Survive. "According to findings Powell and the park have made, the Dunes' growing season will kick off earlier and stretch a month longer by 2050. Rising temperatures and an increase in 'extreme heat days' above 90 degrees Fahrenheit will stress many insects (such as bumblebees) and allow southern tree species, warm-weather grasses, and invasive reeds to encroach, potentially pushing out cold-weather boreal pines and grasses, said Powell. Precipitation has already increased by 18 percent over the last century. By 2050, it could jump another 22 percent, falling increasingly — in the dead of a formerly frigid Great Lakes winter — as rain. 'We're going to have floods, and droughts, sometimes right next to each other,' Powell said." Sob.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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FAA Halts Flights into LaGuardia over Air Traffic Control Staffing Concerns

Mary Schlangenstein at Bloomberg: LaGuardia Flights Halted as Shutdown Hits Air-Traffic Staffing.

The Federal Aviation Administration halted flights into New York's LaGuardia Airport because of a shortage of air-traffic control staff, escalating the pressure on [Donald] Trump and lawmakers to end the government shutdown.

A lack of workers at an air-traffic control facility in the Washington area prompted the FAA to order a ground stop at LaGuardia, one of the nation's busiest transportation hubs. Flights at other East Coast airports such as Washington's Reagan National, Newark Liberty International, and Philadelphia International were also delayed Friday.

This is bad.

And if O'Hare in Chicago or Hartsfield-Jackson in Atlanta go down, it's going to be a total shitshow.

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We Resist: Day 735

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

* * *

Late yesterday and earlier today by me: Pelosi Reiterates: No SOTU While Government Is Closed and Trump Backs Down; Won't Give SOTU and Shutdown Is Making Air Travel Increasingly Unsafe and Reps. Maxine Waters and Adam Schiff to Investigate Deutsche Bank and I Am Here for It!

Here are some more things in the news today...

That's because it is. pic.twitter.com/IneW2eeC7H

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 24, 2019

Niels Lesniewski at Roll Call: Wilbur Ross Doesn't Understand Why Furloughed Federal Workers Need Food Banks.

Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross says he does not understand why federal employees who are furloughed or have been working without pay during the partial government shutdown would need assistance from food banks.

Several credit unions serving workers at federal departments and agencies have been offering stopgap loans, as they have during previous shutdowns. But it’s not clear how those loans would even be sufficient as the shutdown enters its second month.

"I know they are, and I don't really quite understand why," Ross said Thursday when asked on CNBC about workers getting food from places like shelters. "Because, as I mentioned before, the obligations that they would undertake, say borrowing from a bank or a credit union are in effect federally guaranteed."

But in addition to the federal employees who are set to miss another paycheck at the end of this week, there are many federal contractors who have no expectation of ever getting the missed payments back.

Which means they might be unable to pay the loans back. But anyway, Ross doesn't think it's that big a deal. He also said (for real, which I feel obliged to make clear, because this sounds like I'm making it up): "Put it in perspective: You're talking about 800,000 workers, and while I feel sorry for the individuals that have hardship cases, 800,000 workers if they never got their pay, which is not the case they will eventually get it, but if they never got it, you're talking about a third of a percent on our GDP. So, it's not like it's a gigantic number overall." This fucking guy.

I just keep thinking about the survey from three years ago which found that "56 percent of Americans said they have less than $1,000 in their checking and savings accounts combined" and "nearly a quarter (24.8 percent) have less than $100 to their name." We are a nation of people most of whom can't come up with $1,000 in case of emergency and our Commerce Secretary doesn't understand how furloughed workers can't just make it without getting paid indefinitely.

Lisa Rein and Eric Yoder at the Washington Post: Federal Workers Affected by Partial Shutdown to Be Billed for Dental, Vision Coverage. "The 800,000 federal employees furloughed by the partial government shutdown and working without pay were warned Wednesday that they must pay their dental and vision premiums beginning this week or they could lose their coverage. The workers are not at risk of losing their health insurance benefits, which will stay in effect through the duration of the shutdown — and for as long as a year — even if they are not receiving a paycheck, with their accumulated premiums deducted from their pay once their agency reopens. However, that protection does not extend to vision and dental insurance, and starting with their second missed paycheck at the end of this week, employees will be billed directly for premiums for dental and vision coverage."

Katelyn Marmon at ThinkProgress: The Shutdown Exposes Just How Vulnerable Federal Workers Are. "As the shutdown enters its second month without much progress toward reopening the government, hundreds of thousands of federal workers are bracing to miss their second paycheck in a row. ...For federal employees who are unable to do their jobs, being caught in the crossfire of a political debate is not what they signed up for when they decided to become a public servant. And when they're unable to do their work, everyone suffers. 'It's sad that we're actually being held hostage,' said [Ed Hill, a 22-year employee of the Census Bureau who is currently furloughed]. 'We serve the American public. So not only are we being held hostage — people that we serve, the American public, is being held hostage.'"

Brian Faler at Politico: 'Extraordinarily Angry and Very Upset Taxpayers': IRS Faces Chaotic Tax Season Amid Shutdown.

The IRS is facing tax season amid the shutdown with new rules that could complicate filing for millions of Americans — and a potential shortage of workers to handle the returns — raising the possibility of refund delays and angry taxpayers.

...The public, meanwhile, will be filing for the first time under Republicans' sweeping tax overhaul, H.R. 1, and many will surely be confused by changes made as part of the biggest tax code rewrite in a generation. At the same time, even experts are unsure whether workers have had the correct amount of taxes withheld from their paychecks, which could mean that many people accustomed to receiving refunds may instead owe the IRS.

...It is shaping up to be a big test of the Trump administration and is an increasingly important pressure point in the fight over the ongoing partial government shutdown.

"Everybody is concerned," said John Koskinen, who stepped down in 2017 as IRS commissioner. "There would have been uncertainty and challenges even without the shutdown — the shutdown is just exacerbating all of that."

Meanwhile, over at the Department of Homeland Security...

Trump didn't listen to Kelly when he was chief of staff. No reason to expect he'll listen to him now. https://t.co/jptpG3qxFh

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 24, 2019

Tanya Snyder at Politico: 'We're Done': Shutdown Strikes Small, Midsize, and Rural Transit. "The government shutdown is pushing some of the nation's small, midsize, and rural transit systems to an existential crisis, prompting bus agencies to scale back service, prepare for furloughs, or even contemplate closing their doors entirely. ...The trauma for crucial transportation lifelines in rural or small-town America, including in states [Donald] Trump won in 2016, underscores the damage the 34-day shutdown is inflicting hundreds or thousands of miles from Washington, D.C. While the loss of federal dollars is hitting transit systems large and small, including those inside the Beltway, the most vulnerable agencies are those that don't get significant state support. And their riders are primarily low-income seniors, people with disabilities, and veterans."

I guess if you don't need to eat, you don't need to be able to get to the grocery store — or your job or your doctor or anywhere else, either.

Fucking hell.

* * *

Staff at the Daily Beast: Russia Tells Trump: Leave Venezuela Alone. "Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Moscow has thrown its support behind Maduro and directly warned the U.S. against military intervention. 'We consider that would be a catastrophic scenario that would shake the foundations of the development model which we see in Latin America,' said Ryabkov. He went on: 'Venezuela is friendly to us and is our strategic partner... We have supported them and will support them.' Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that outside interference in the country was 'unacceptable' and that the prospect of military intervention from the U.S. was very dangerous." Oh.

#UPDATE A Ukrainian court finds ex-president Viktor Yanukovych guilty of high treason and sentenced him in absentia to 13 years in prison for asking Russia's Vladimir Putin to send troops to Ukraine https://t.co/JqlhGqZmS5

— AFP news agency (@AFP) January 24, 2019

That's the guy for whom Trump's former campaign chair Paul Manafort and Bernie Sanders' chief strategist Ted Devine used to work. Yup.

* * *

Juliet Eilperin and Brady Dennis at the Washington Post: Civil Penalties for Polluters Dropped Dramatically in Trump's First Two Years, Analysis Shows. "Civil penalties for polluters under the Trump administration plummeted during the past fiscal year to the lowest average level since 1994, according to a new analysis of Environmental Protection Agency data. In the two decades before [Donald] Trump took office, EPA civil fines averaged more than $500 million a year, when adjusted for inflation. Last year's $72 million in fines was 85 percent below that amount, according to the agency's Enforcement and Compliance History Online database." Good grief.

[Content Note: Rightwing terrorism] Luke Barnes at ThinkProgress: Experts Warn of Far-Right Threat as Police Foil Two Separate Violent Plots in One Week. "The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) released its annual report on extremism within the United States this week, revealing that individuals linked to or affiliated with the far-right were responsible for every extremist-related murder committed in the United States in 2018. The report notes far-right extremists were responsible for 50 murders in the 2018, making it the fourth deadliest year on record for domestic extremism in the United States. What's perhaps more alarming is that those murders only represent the tip of the iceberg. Just this week, authorities uncovered two separate violent plots in New York and Utah, both of which were planned out by suspects with far-right leanings, but thankfully not carried out."

[CN: Gun violence] Pilar Melendez at the Daily Beast: Gunman Accused of Killing 5 Women in Florida Bank Shooting 'Wanted Everybody to Die': Ex-Girlfriend. "There were plenty of warning signs. Zephen Xaver — the 21-year-old former prison guard trainee accused of killing five women while holding them hostage inside a bank in Sebring, Florida — had an obsession with guns and death, his ex-girlfriend told The Daily Beast. ...'His fascination with death got worse when we broke up,' she said. ...The 20-year-old said she tried to 'warn people' about Xaver's 'potentially fatal interests'... 'Listen, he was pretty open about the fact that he wanted everybody to die. All he talked about was killing people,' she said. 'He was one of those people that was too into mass shootings you know? He even got kicked out of school for having a dream that he killed everyone in his class.'"

[CN: Erosion of abortion access] Soumya Karlamangla at the LA Times: 60 Hours, 50 Abortions: A California Doctor's Monthly Commute to a Texas Clinic. "She comes here once a month, part of an unofficial network of physicians who travel across state lines to perform abortions in places where few doctors are willing. It's not yet 9 a.m., and the clinic's waiting rooms are filled, navigating them a game of human Tetris. Women with their husbands. Women pushing strollers. Women alone. The young doctor will spend 60 hours in Dallas this trip and perform 50 abortions. She will have to run in the hallways to keep up with her packed schedule."

[CN: Anti-choicery] Josephine Yurcaba at Rewire.News: Valerie Huber's New Role at HHS Could Bring Abstinence-Only Agenda to Global Policy. "Abstinence-only proponent Valerie Huber will move to a new position in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Global Affairs, worrying reproductive health advocates and experts who believe she could push her agenda into the global arena. ...She previously served as senior policy advisor for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. An unnamed department official told Politico that Huber is 'expected to strip references to sexual and reproductive health as well as sex education from the agency's global health documents,' and advocates say that move would have widespread repercussions."

[CN: Misogynoir; birtherism] Savas Abadsidis at Towleroad: #MAGA Troll Jacob Wohl, Who Previously Attacked Mueller, Is Trying to Smear Kamala Harris with Birther Rumors. "Jacob Wohl the troll who attempted to smear Robert Mueller by paying women to make false sexual harassment complaints against him is now targeting 2020 presidential hopeful Kamala Harris. In a tweet on Tuesday, Wohl said that Harris should be disqualified from the presidential race because her parents were not born in the U.S." But she was, which is all that matters.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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Shutdown Is Making Air Travel Increasingly Unsafe

With acting White House Chief of Staff Mick Mulvaney seeking information about what will happen if the shutdown extends into April and Donald Trump threatening "This will go on for a while," and Speaker Nancy Pelosi standing her ground on not allowing Trump to get what he wants by holding the nation hostage, it doesn't look as though the shutdown is going to end anytime soon.

The consequences of a lasting shutdown are unfathomable — the sheer amount of pain for individual federal workers and their families, and the escalating harm for the entire nation.

It's getting very bad very quickly. Yesterday, union leaders for air traffic controllers, pilots, and flight attendants issued a joint statement containing a grim warning about the urgent threat the shutdown is posing to U.S. air travel.

In the statement, National Air Traffic Controllers Association President Paul Rinaldi, Air Line Pilots Association President Joe DePete, and Association of Flight Attendants-CWA President Sara Nelson wrote: "In our risk averse industry, we cannot even calculate the level of risk currently at play, nor predict the point at which the entire system will break. It is unprecedented."

They continue:

Due to the shutdown, air traffic controllers, transportation security officers, safety inspectors, air marshals, federal law enforcement officers, FBI agents, and many other critical workers have been working without pay for over a month. Staffing in our air traffic control facilities is already at a 30-year low and controllers are only able to maintain the system's efficiency and capacity by working overtime, including 10-hour days and 6-day workweeks at many of our nation's busiest facilities.

Due to the shutdown, the FAA has frozen hiring and shuttered its training academy, so there is no plan in effect to fill the FAA's critical staffing need. Even if the FAA were hiring, it takes two to four years to become fully facility certified and achieve Certified Professional Controller (CPC) status. Almost 20% of CPCs are eligible to retire today. There are no options to keep these professionals at work without a paycheck when they can no longer afford to support their families. When they elect to retire, the National Airspace System (NAS) will be crippled.

The situation is changing at a rapid pace. Major airports are already seeing security checkpoint closures, with many more potentially to follow. Safety inspectors and federal cyber security staff are not back on the job at pre-shutdown levels, and those not on furlough are working without pay. Last Saturday, TSA management announced that a growing number of officers cannot come to work due to the financial toll of the shutdown. In addition, we are not confident that system-wide analyses of safety reporting data, which is used to identify and implement corrective actions in order to reduce risks and prevent accidents is 100 percent operational due to reduced FAA resources.

As union leaders, we find it unconscionable that aviation professionals are being asked to work without pay and in an air safety environment that is deteriorating by the day. To avoid disruption to our aviation system, we urge Congress and the White House to take all necessary steps to end this shutdown immediately.

At the Guardian, Lauren Gambino additionally notes: "Meanwhile, airlines are reporting tens of millions in lost revenue."

This is one industry. Now multiply this over a number of industries and imagine the safety and economic consequences.

And let us be clear: This is not the result of "government dysfunction," as so many highly-compensated members of our elite political press will tell you. It's not down to "gridlock," and it's not due to "the intransigence of both sides," or whatever language they use to try to equally blame Republicans (who hold the executive branch, the Senate, and the Supreme Court) and Democrats (who hold the House).

It has been an explicit objective of the conservative agenda to shrink the federal government for longer than I've been alive. They have actively endeavored to defund, disempower, and destroy the federal government. Failure is the point.

Conservatives own this shutdown and all of its ugly consequences. They wanted it; they got it; they own it.

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Trump Backs Down; Won't Give SOTU

Art of the Deal, Chapter One: Losing to Women Who Are Totally the Boss of You. pic.twitter.com/6U7W7qhj5S

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 24, 2019

After Speaker Nancy Pelosi stood on the line and refused to allow Donald Trump to bully her off of it, Donald Trump tweeted late yesterday that FINE HE WON'T EVEN GIVE THE STUPID STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS GEEZ.

As the Shutdown was going on, Nancy Pelosi asked me to give the State of the Union Address. I agreed. She then changed her mind because of the Shutdown, suggesting a later date. This is her prerogative - I will do the Address when the Shutdown is over. I am not looking for an....

....alternative venue for the SOTU Address because there is no venue that can compete with the history, tradition and importance of the House Chamber. I look forward to giving a "great" State of the Union Address in the near future!

1. "Great."

2. A "great" attempt to look like he somehow "won," which he definitely did not do.

3. I'm pretty sure he didn't write those tweets.

4. Someone is aware he cannot actually win this battle on the current terms. Which is quite scary.

5. I'm really glad that Nancy Pelosi is Speaker, and I hope everyone who said she was past it sniffs some sour milk today.

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Pelosi Reiterates: No SOTU While Government Is Closed

Yesterday, it was reported that Donald Trump was still preparing a State of the Union address, despite the fact that Speaker Nancy Pelosi had informed him there would be no SOTU address so long as the government was shut down, because it was a legitimate security issue.

Today, Trump issued a letter asserting he would be giving the SOTU on January 29th, as though Pelosi had never told him he sure the fuck was not.

So Pelosi sent him a letter back, making clear that there would be no SOTU until Trump and/or his party ends the federal shutdown:

No SOTU Tuesday, Pelosi says to Trump pic.twitter.com/XZzPNju6Ft

— Manu Raju (@mkraju) January 23, 2019

When asked by reporters why she was not going to allow Trump to give his SOTU, she responded bluntly: "Because government is closed."

Meanwhile, Trump again blamed Democrats for the shutdown, calling them "radicalized" and threatening ominously: "This will go on for a while."

This is not, as the political press insists on mischaracterizing it, a "tit-for-tat" with "both sides" being equally culpable.

It is an authoritarian shitwheel manufacturing a crisis in order to further consolidate power and subvert the very democracy which he ostensibly swore to protect, and a party led by a staunch broad as patriotic as she is tough standing on the line to stop the further seizure of power from said shitwheel and his party of vile traitors.

That's what's happening.

"Both sides" could not be less equal. No one in the history of humanity has ever mistaken a hero full of bottomless moxy for a Russian nesting doll of character defects.

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The Shutdown Is Impeding Federal Investigations

This is fine (this is not fine): The longer the shutdown drags on, the more it is impeding federal investigations, which, according to federal officers, makes the shutdown itself "a serious national-security threat."

Natasha Bertrand at the Atlantic reports:

FBI agents have lost irreplaceable sources. Joint Terrorism Task Force officers can't get into the bureau's computer systems. Federal investigations are being stymied by a lack of resources. The partial government shutdown, now in its 33rd day, has become a serious national-security threat, the FBI Agents Association said on Tuesday.

Over the past several weeks, the association has been compiling stories from agents about the the shutdown's impact on the bureau's operations. One agent, speaking anonymously, said his unit had "lost several sources who have worked for months, and years, to penetrate groups and target subjects" due to the inability to pay confidential sources.

"These assets cannot be replaced," the agent said. "Serving my country has always been a privilege, but it has never been so hard or thankless."

Another agent reported: "Not being able to pay Confidential Human Sources risks losing them and the information they provide FOREVER. It is not a switch that we can turn on and off."

Others complained that their investigations were being slow-rolled, with dozens of grand-jury subpoenas going undelivered. "The operational impacts of this shutdown are immeasurable," said one agent in the Northeast region.

Naturally, many people will automatically wonder how the Special Counsel's office is being impacted, and that is certainly a concern. The corrupt president shutting down the government while he is under investigation is effectively (if not explicitly) yet another attempt to obstruct justice.

But there are other cases of grave urgency being affected, too — including, naturally, drug trafficking and human trafficking and terrorism cases that are ostensibly so important to Donald Trump that he had to shutdown the government over getting funding for a wall to prevent drugs and human traffickers and terrorists from entering the country.

(Never mind that the vast majority of trafficking does not happen across the southern border, nor is it a key point of entry for terrorists.)

Trump is famously hostile to the rule of law, and he doesn't care if the entire justice system grinds to a fucking halt during this shutdown. Nor does the rest of his party, who could put a stop to this mess, but refuse.

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Let Them Eat MAGA Hats

Lara Trump, who is Donald Trump's daughter-in-law by way of marriage to his deplorable son Eric, had this shit to say to the federal workers who aren't getting paid as a result of her father-in-law's shutdown tantrum because Nancy Pelosi refuses to give him funding for his monument to nativist white supremacy:

We get that this is unfair to you, but this is so much bigger than any one person. It is a little bit of pain, but it's going to be for the future of our country and their children and their grandchildren and generations after that will thank them for their sacrifice right now.

1. Fuck you.

2. Not getting paid for working people who depend on their salaries is not "a little bit of pain." It's a lot of pain.

3. This shit is not happening "for the future of our country." It's for a bullshit wall that is being justified with lies and bigotry.

4. It's not a "sacrifice" if you're being forced to do it against your will.

5. I'm so sure kids will be lining up to thank their parents for that time they didn't get the shoes they needed because the bad man in Washington refused to give mommy her paycheck.

6. Conservatives really need to stop pretending like they give a single fuck about the welfare of federal workers when explicitly advocating reducing the size of the federal government is central to the Republican platform.

7. Fuck you.

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Trump Still Plans to Do the State of the Union

Seung Min Kim at the Washington Post: Trump Prepares Two Versions of State of the Union Address as Shutdown Tensions Escalate.

The White House is trying to forge ahead with plans to hold the State of the Union next week, further escalating a political tit-for-tat with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) who requested last week [Donald] Trump delay his address at the Capitol as long as the federal government remains partially shuttered.

Trump is preparing two versions of his annual speech — one that could be delivered in Washington and another that would be held somewhere else in the country, according to a senior White House official.

Of course he is. And no one should be the least bit surprised by this authoritarian shitwheel refusing to abide the Speaker's wishes, because he made it abundantly clear during his campaign what his position on women telling him no is.

That's not intended to be a humorous statement, though I'm sure there are people who will take it that way. The fact is that chauvinist abusers don't respect women, period.

Some of us made that point once or twice before Election Day.

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We Resist: Day 729

One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.

So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.

Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.

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Earlier today by me: Trump Committed Obstruction Another Time and Must Be Removed Immediately and Trump Regime Contemplated Denying Refugee Children Their Right to Asylum Hearings and Get. Him. Out. Of. Office. And ICYMI late yesterday: An Observation About Toxic Masculinity.

Here are some more things in the news today...

I don't know what it's going to take to wake people up to the gravity of the situation in which we find ourselves, but maybe this will do it.

Let's be very blunt about this: Trump is willing to starve his own people, which is something that only the most brutal dictators in history have done. https://t.co/qaGtFU8Gm4

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 18, 2019

Indeed he doesn't. But that doesn't make them *not* his own people. Other dictators also othered their own people before and as a rationale for starving (and/or in other ways harming) them. That this is his view also puts him right in line with other vicious authoritarians.

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 18, 2019

American Exceptionalism is making far too many people complacent about what is already happening here. Don't believe it couldn't happen here. It's happening.

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After Speaker Nancy Pelosi was not allowed to go on her diplomatic mission to see NATO leaders and visit the troops, Donald Trump has now decided that no one in Congress will be allowed to go anywhere without his approval:

JUST IN: White House issues a directive to executive branch agencies that bars congressional delegation travel on any government aircraft, as well as use of travel expenses, during the shutdown without White House approval. pic.twitter.com/LmtMoWDIVX

— NBC News (@NBCNews) January 18, 2019

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is meeting with North Korea and Senator Lindsey Graham is in Turkey meeting with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

And the United States is doing nothing as Russia deploys nuclear-capable ballistic missile launchers near Ukraine's border.

So, Lindsey Graham is with Erdogan, Mike Pompeo's with North Korea, John Bolton is asking the Pentagon for plans to go to war with Iran, Russia is moving nukes to Ukraine's border, and Trump stopped Pelosi from meeting with NATO.

How much more urgent does it have to get, folks?

— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) January 18, 2019

Everything is fine. (Everything is not fine.)

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[Content Note: Nativism; Islamophobia] Caitlin Oprysko at Politico: Trump Touts Story About Finding 'Prayer Rugs' Along Border. "Donald Trump on Friday sought to prop up his administration's claims that migrants who enter the U.S. illegally at the southern border don't come from only Mexico and Central America, in an attempt to justify his demands for a border wall. Trump cited a story from conservative news outlet the Washington Examiner in which an unnamed rancher living in New Mexico claimed to have found 'prayer rugs,' or pieces of carpet used by Muslims for prayer, near her property. The story does not include any first-person accounts of seeing such migrants, however. U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Arizona said recently that it had arrested migrants from seven countries trying to enter the U.S. illegally there, but none of the countries it named were majority Muslim."

In other words, that rancher is lying, and Trump is repeating the lie.

[CN: LGBTQ hatred] Carla Herreria at the Huffington Post: Vice President Says Outrage over Wife Karen Pence's Discriminatory School Is 'Offensive'. "Vice President Mike Pence defended second lady Karen Pence's decision to take a teaching job at a school that discriminates against LGBTQ individuals and families, suggesting that the uproar over it is an attack on Christianity. During an interview with the Catholicism-focused Eternal World Television Network on Thursday, Pence said that the attacks on the Immanuel Christian School, which bans LGBTQ employees, students, and families, were offensive to his family. 'To see major news organizations attacking Christian education is deeply offensive to us,' Pence said. 'We'll let the critics roll off our backs,' the vice president continued. 'But this criticism of Christian education should stop.'"

1. Fuck you. 2. It's not an attack on Christianity; it's a condemnation of bigotry. 3. Not all Christian denominations are homophobic and transphobic, so it can't possibly be an attack on Christianity. 4. Running to the media and demanding that criticism stop is the polar opposite of letting the criticism roll off your backs. 5. Fuck you.

[CN: Anti-choicery] Ally Boguhn at Rewire.News: Senate GOP Prioritizes Abortion Funding Restrictions over Ending Shutdown. "U.S. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) advanced legislation that would codify a ban on federal abortion funding in a nod to anti-choice activists rallying this week in Washington, D.C. But the bill's progress was halted Thursday afternoon when it failed to pass the 60-vote threshold needed to proceed. Meanwhile, McConnell continues to block legislation to end the partial government shutdown." PRIORITIES.

[CN: Anti-choicery; class warfare] Emma Platoff at the Texas Tribune: Federal Appeals Court Lifts Order Blocking Texas from Kicking Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid. "A federal appeals court has lifted a lower court order that blocked Texas from booting Planned Parenthood out of Medicaid, potentially imperiling the health care provider's participation in the federal-state health insurance program. A three-judge panel on the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday that Sam Sparks, the federal district judge who preserved Planned Parenthood's status in the program in February 2017, had used the wrong standard in his ruling. The appeals court sent the case back to him for further consideration." JFC.

[CN: Homophobia] Tim Fitzsimons at NBC News: Judge Rules Against Elderly Lesbians Rejected from Retirement Home.

A federal court on Wednesday ruled against a lesbian couple who brought a lawsuit against a Missouri retirement home that rejected the women's apartment application because their marriage is not "understood in the Bible.”

Bev Nance, 68, and Mary Walsh, 72, married a decade ago in Massachusetts and have been in a committed relationship for roughly 40 years.

When they applied to move into the Friendship Village senior living facility, they did so "because it is in their community, they have friends there, and it offers services that would allow them to stay together there for the rest of their lives," said Julie Wilensky, an attorney representing the couple.

But once Friendship Village staff found that Nance and Walsh are married, they told the couple that they were not allowed to move in, because the home did not condone homosexuality. The letter they received said that the only married couples they accepted were those in unions between "one man and one woman."

The couple sued, alleging "discrimination on the basis of sex," and their case was finally decided this week by a federal court in Missouri, which found "sexual orientation rather than sex lies at the heart of Plaintiffs' claims."

LGBTQ groups decried the outcome, and the couple's lawyers said "we disagree with the court's decision, and our clients are considering next steps."

Goddammit. Rage seethe boil.

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Staff at the Daily Beast: DNC Says It Was Hit by a Russian Cyberattack Days After the Midterms. "The Democratic National Committee claims it was hit by a Russian cyberattack in the days after the 2018 midterm elections. According to court documents filed late Thursday, the DNC says 'dozens of DNC email addresses were targeted in a spear-phishing campaign' on Nov. 14, but that the attack appears to have failed to gain access to any information. The committee believes the attack was part of a phishing campaign that cybersecurity firms previously linked to a Russian hacking group known as Cozy Bear. Cozy Bear is linked to Russian intelligence and is said to have broken into the DNC's systems ahead of the 2016 presidential election." Fucking hell.

Erin McCormick at the Guardian: Recalls of 'Potentially Lethal' U.S. Meat and Poultry Nearly Double Since 2013.

The number of meat and poultry products recalled in the US for potentially life-threatening health hazards has nearly doubled since 2013, according to a report by a consumer watchdog group.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture logged 97 meat recalls for serious health hazards in 2018, ranging from 12 million pounds of raw beef that made close to 250 people ill with salmonella to the withdrawal of 174,000 pounds of chicken wraps for possible contamination with listeria.

These "Class 1" recalls — for conditions the USDA deems "a health hazard situation in which there is a reasonable probability that eating the food will cause health problems or death" — are up from 53 in 2013, the report by the US PIRG Education Fund said.

"The most dangerous types of meat and poultry recalls are on the rise," said Adam Garber, who co-authored the report. "Whether you like hamburger or chicken, more and more dangerous meat is reaching your house."

Some people argue that this proves inspections are working; i.e. more cases are being caught. Either way, the numbers are going to go up the longer the shutdown lasts. Food safety is one of the many things that will compromised by a shuttered government.

Joel Shannon at USA Today: Measles Outbreak Grows in Area with Low Vaccination Rate, Most Patients Unimmunized. "A measles outbreak in southwestern Washington state has grown to 16 confirmed cases, and most of the children affected are unimmunized against the disease, officials said Thursday. ...Only two of the children have an unverified immunization status; the other 14 are unimmunized, officials say. Clark County has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the state, with more than 22 percent of public school students having not completed their vaccinations, The Oregonian reports, citing state records."

Outbreaks of disease, whether due to a subversion of herd immunity or other causes, will also be even worse than otherwise if the shutdown continues. We are just fucked on so many levels.

What have you been reading that we need to resist today?

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